Backups - How do you do yours?

I have about 1.2Tb of storage as well.
I do the lazymans backup at home, i dont.:p.
I have everything spread over different HDDs. So if one fails, i dont lose everything.
 
My backup procedure is very simple:

I have an 80GB IDE Harddrive in an external harddrive enclosure (Its all i need)
Every Friday I have schedule manager to run a batch file with xcopy command
@echo off
echo ----------------------------------
echo Backup of My Documents folder
echo ----------------------------------
xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\Ross Yule\My Documents" "F:\Backup" /d /i /e /y /v
echo ----------------------------------
pause
echo ----------------------------------
echo Backup of Microsoft Outlook Email
echo ----------------------------------
xcopy "C:\Documents and Settings\Ross Yule\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook" "F:\Outlook" /d /i /e /y /v
echo ----------------------------------
echo Backup complete
echo ----------------------------------
pause
quit
Click to expand...
It produces a very nice output too ;)

Every first day of the month the harddrive is automatically cleared with the del command (another batch file) and then another running of the Backup.bat file

The xcopy command only copies files it does not have in the destination directory, or files that have been modified since they were last backed up.

Its fully automated except for where I have entered pauses so I can check file numbers copied etc. to detect any problems.

It verifies all files, it suppresses any need to confirm overwriting at the destination - xcopy, its all you'll ever need, and I can't even tell when its running - its extremely fast and hardly uses any memory or CPU usage - its the perfect backup procedure.
 
Last edited:
RossYule said:
xcopy
Click to expand...

Robocopy > Xcopy. Seriously give it a try, if you like using xcopy you may find robocopy floats your boat too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy

Example:

Code: 
robocopy "D:\Website" "G:\Website" /MIR /COPY:DAT /DCOPY:T /V /TS /X /TEE /NP /LOG:"Website.txt" /R:10 /W:30

The bonuses I see over xopy is that it brings all the file attributes and supports resuming should you accidentally kill the backup process or have a power cut etc.
 
Last edited:
I have a 160GB external drive that I basically mirror the contents of my Storage HDD onto and keep the external in our fireproof safe at work ;)

However I've recently bought a 500gb drive for my PC to replace the 160GB drive, and I think I'm about to realise that 500gb into 160gb doesn't go :( Better do something about that
 
Robocopy sounds really good, i particularly like the sound of the mirror feature - which xcopy doesn't have. I have to run a batch file to delete the backup drive every month or so to save it getting full of data I've deleted at the source! Thanks for suggestion :)
 
RossYule said:
Robocopy sounds really good, i particularly like the sound of the mirror feature - which xcopy doesn't have. I have to run a batch file to delete the backup drive every month or so to save it getting full of data I've deleted at the source! Thanks for suggestion :)
Click to expand...

Yeah much faster to run it with the backup already in place, so the log file it generates is full of 'file skipped' so it doesn't recopy and it deletes files that have gone (though there is a switch to turn this off if you want to keep them).

There is also an MS freebie GUI out there that you can use if you can't keep track of all the switches. I whacked it all into one batch I run every week.
 
I never understand why people need such massive HDD space. 1.3tb wow. I have a 180 gb drive with only about 50 used and I have a lot of porn ;)

I then just use norton ghost to back up that image once a month onto a slave drive or external. Important stuff like photos I also back up to dvd.

I've never been a big downloader so I guess thats why I dont get the 1.3TB stuff, but still I'd burn it to dvd and remove the files from my drive.
 
I've got a 250gb backup drive, doing the stuff I really don't want to lose. When I get a new drive internally, that'll go up to 500gb and I'll have a bit more space to back up some non-essential stuff too :)

And I use SyncToy...
 
dannyjo22 said:
I've never been a big downloader so I guess thats why I dont get the 1.3TB stuff, but still I'd burn it to dvd and remove the files from my drive.
Click to expand...
....and there you go.

Trust me, when you start downloading more and more, you'll start off with the intent of putting the downloads on CD/DVDs, but after a while, you'll soon get bored of it and just start buying more HDDs. :p

I have so much junk on my PC its not even funny. :p
 
All the files that are worth anything are on a network drive which is backed up to tape :)

Isn't the 255 character limit a feature of NTFS?

Burnsy
 
Last edited:
To be honest I don't really do backups :o
Seen as I never do silly things with me PC. Maybe I'm treading on thin ice, but I've been fine for over 7 years ;)
But when I do a reformat, I whip all my files on to my 60GB video ipod hard drive. Then once its reformated, whip them back to the PC.
Jobs a good'un:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom